Steam is officially giving up on me with game recommendations

Yesterday I said to a friend: "You know what? I can't think of a single game right now that I'd like to spend a lot of time in.", and he couldn't either. Today I'm frustratedly clicking through the steam discovery queue, and even steam is throwing up it's arms and basically saying "Pfft, I don't know what you want anymore... "




So while we are playing Destiny 2 and are bored out of our minds by samey and repetitive gameplay in spite of all the pretty visuals, I'm longing for some kind of game that has a more tangible progression and reward system with emergent goals that I actually care about and that would change up gameplay in meaningful ways, instead of an endless hamster-wheel of "make the numbers go bigger". I miss gameplay challenges that require some amount of "thought and improvisation" to get through, like Prey: Mooncrash. I miss systems based design that allows for some degree of creative expression in combat gameplay, like in MGS:V. I miss a game that I manage to get enough investment in to play for 80+ hours like Battletech, Kingdom Come: Deliverance or any of the Dark Souls games.

Any you know what steam - with all its machine-learning and data-mining based wisdom - says to me in my hour of need - knowing I'm a typical core-gamer with combined 3000+ hours spent in grim games set in warzones, dark-fantasy worlds or scifi dystopias? "How about some anime porn games? We hear tiddies are pretty popular right now."

The first one had the message that I screenshotted above attached to it. That was a straight up unapologetic porn game centered around a character creator. The next one in the queue seems like a porn game with some hidden-object gameplay elements and was acompanied by this recommendation explanation:




Steam, why have you forsaken me? How is that tag even a thing? Might as well tag games as "fun" if you wanna go this generic with your categories.

I went through a couple more queues and most of it was either boring stuff I didn't care about or things I already was aware of but don't want to play right now. One stood out though:





Steam, why the F*** do you think I only played both of those games for less than an hour in spite of owning them for years? I DIDN'T LIKE THEM! How is that not factored into the algorithm that I've played these waaaaaay less than most other games in my library that I played at all??? This metric seems to be less than useless.


Of the last 2 games that I had some kind of hope for (Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and COD:MW) both had disappointing betas and I'm getting more and more pessimistic about the overall direction the industry is moving in. And now as a cherry on top, steam is telling me directly that it doesn't know what to recommend to me anymore either...

 

Recently, tbh, I have actually found a couple games I enjoyed (and overlooked) by using the steam labs stuff.

I found a super niche game Star traders: frontiers that actually offers some pretty engaging non combat play, with systems that were fleshed out to support stuff other than just raw combat. In fact, the game often penalizes you for engaging in combat too casually (at least on the harder half of the difficulty scale).

I put in a bunch of hours into this and actually found a major solution to a design problem I always struggled with in this game.

Most of the time, I end up firing up an old game though rather than buying a new game because of similar frustrations.

 

I've not purchased or downloaded a new game in 3 years >_< XD

I feel ya there...

 

Who knows. Have you tried branchign out in genre? I mean i never played a turn based game in my life until i started working on To Battle. Now I like them a lot.

But yeah, i hardly play games at all anymore. Too much junk. Everything is a game based on a game based on a game. So its very watered down. Then if you do find somethign novel its usually so bizarre you just can't make sense of it. Or it's melodramatic to the point of nausea. I think I am really out of touch with average gamer and game developer. I think maybe you are just fatigued on it all, having played games for too long.

Exanima is pretty cool. Have you tried that? I always recommend The Long Dark. Thats a rare game I can return to time and again.


But that's part of the reason I'm making games. Gotta make the ones I want to play.

 

Wow, I can't believe Steam's discoverability is...

*checks notes*

...bad.

 

Thanks for the recommendation. I took another look at it and based on its recommendations I tried out "Mutant Year Zero". Seems solid but lacking the depth of the old turn based tactics games.

They just don't make 'em like they used to anymore .

I think I'm pretty diversified there already. I have (through bundles etc.) a ton of "interesting" games that are very "different", but I'm not drawn to those because I know they neither have the mechanics nor the content to get me the intense and long lasting engagement of an exploration focused open world game with deep gameplay systems. I loved Subnautica but I know Abzu isn't gonna scratch that same itch. So I have it in my library but never played it and don't feel compelled to.

I hope you tried Jagged Alliance 2, I think you'd like it.

Yeah, maybe. Getting old sucks I guess .

We've talked about both before. Didn't like the Long Dark. Don't think I'd like Exanima, but I might pick it up in a sale when it's out of EA to check out the controls.

Yeah, shocker, I know. The bigger issue though is that on the supply side I'm starting to exhaust the pool of games that interest me. It's not like steam is just sneakily hiding for example all those hardcore turn based tactics games that are better and deeper than Jagged Alliance 2, they just don't exist. The game is 20 years old, and still the king of the genre.

 

I havent tried Jagged Alliance. My issue with strategy games is simply that they are usually too much for me to get into. I mean, I maybe play games a few hours a month these days. I did look at that other one you recommended... the WW2 one. It seems awesome but after like 20 mins I was just like, "this is just too much for me rightnow. I dont have the time."

 

I think you guys are just getting old in heart. Also when everyone turn into a bunch of cynics? We create games, we aren't tabloid editors. We're should have a positive outlook.

 

You should keep an eye on Rock Paper Shotgun, they usually find plenty of unique stuff, including niche strategy games and small indie stuff.

Recently though, I've been looking for older stuff that I missed out on when they first released. I'm thinking of trying Men of War, which, despite having the most generic title possible, is apparently a "true great" in the strategy space. Finding the time to actually play it is another thing though.

 

When? Probably around the time I watched this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_Getting_Old

I'll check them out but I highly doubt they can show me interesting stuff I never heard about unless it's not being sold on steam.

Do it! That's the WW2 game that Bigtimemaster mentioned. This is the version you'll want to try:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/244450/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad_2/

Yeah, I can understand that. For what it's worth, I think JA2 has a much lower barrier to entry. Just give the standard JA2 (not wildfire, not community mod, which both are great in their own way) a go some time, on the easiest difficulty and see the glory that this game is.

 

i'll check it out. gonna be on a plane and getting a new laptop soon so may be a good time

 

@Martin_H dude, I don't think JA2 is entry level strategy game - especially if you roll with the absolutely needed 113.

JA2 is definitely for people who are pretty hardcore in genre.

Honestly, I can't think of many good entry level examples outside of like xcom

 

you never know though. personally i didn't like xcom at all. main reason was jsut the theme and the slow animations you had to wait on.

i mean i think i would love men or war it was just too complicated and at the end of day sitting in front of screen i just donnt wanna dive into something like that.

i htink that just wipes out strategy altogether. Unless of course you talking about Hell's Crusade, which is a nice little strategy game thats easy to pick up and play while still delivering solid gameplay you can sink your yellow peasanty teeth into.

 

Lol, from what I know about you dude - JA2 would probably be kinda a nightmare to you. I would consider it a hardcore title, otoh - give it a spin, who knows!

It's a really great game if you can get into it.

 

I think the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert 1 would be your jam. Strategic and tactical, but certainly accessible and somewhat fast paced. I can't get them to run on my pc anymore, but I've got them on PS1, which works absolutely fine, probably the best ever example of an rts running on console imo.

 

I played those to death back when they came out. Lol would be cool to revisit though. I assume @Martin_H has played them as well?

 

I never said it's "entry level", I just thought he might like it, based on his love for punishingly hard games with little handholding, games with lots of freedom, and him having mentioned game design ideas themed around guerilla warfare where you are outnumbered and outgunned, and that is pretty much the setting of JA2. All the military combat and gear stuff should make sense to him and the UI and controls aren't that hard to figure out. For everything else there's savescumming and trial & error.

I've played it on a train, should work fine. Just maybe do the "hiring mercenaries" at home, I wouldn't want someone on the plane to think you're browsing the deepweb trying to hire a gang of terrorists or something like that and kick you off the plane before take-off.

Xcom is too hard for a beginner because the game has these feedback loops in the meta. If you don't savescum or are a real veteran of tactics games, you'll get crushed. A friend of mine tried it 3 times or so and always had to give up because he doesn't want to savescum but also isn't the kind of compulsive optimizer that I am, so he always lost the support of too many countries and didn't build his base with good adjacency bonuses. And then it just turns unwinnable at some point.

The JA2 meta is much more intuitive to handle imho: make sure you earn more than you spend (just like in real life) and don't lose the support of the people working in the mines for you.

I've played a couple C&C game and wouldn't even put them on my alltime favorites list. I think the franchise is slightly overrated for the singleplayer to be honest (don't care about multiplayer myself).

I just booted up JA2:Wildfire again for a couple minutes and loaded my last quicksave from mid firefight and killed a couple dudes. It's just so fun and satisfying. Seems like that was the playthrough where I tried to do all the fighting without hired mercs, just the one "custom merc" from the personality test (which feels like a pretty insane challenge at times). @BIGTIMEMASTER: when they email you ingame about that test, do it asap, you'll get a free merc a couple days later that won't cost you any upkeep and is pretty good in stats if you skill him right (agility and marksmanship are most important imho).

 

have you look at Freemen Guerilla? It's mount and blade clone almost directly but with guns. i havent checked it out just know it exist.

 

I saw that on RPS today and passed the link on to @frosted. Concept seemed interesting but it looked a little "too indie" for me to really enjoy it.

 

i watched ten minutes of a lets play and reason i have little interest is because it looks like direct carbon copy of m&b, just with guns. So the concepts don't exactly make sense. Like even the language is very similar. They use words like smite and stuff. But it's supposed to be guerilla warfare in in eastern europe.I love the premise of it all, but it looks like it was executed with zero creativity. So it's just "meh" to me.

I know that seems silly reaosn to not like a game, but I just don't like stuff like that. I like for evereything to make sense, ya know?

 

I bought Everspace on sale and so far I'm liking it quite a lot:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/396750/EVERSPACE/

It has risk/reward choices, forces you to improvise in the face of varying challenges, combat always feels deadly and exploring has been fun so far. A bit like Elite Dangerous without all the tedium and then made a little more arcady. You might be reminded of Descent in terms of how the combat and collecting loot feels. Normally I don't like roguelikes, but the permanent progress that you unlock in the meta progression helps me get over dying over and over again. On average each of my runs took less than an hour.
The coolest moment so far was taking down a ship that was much bigger and tougher than mine (but super slow), by taking cover behind an old shipwreck and quickly peaking out for short moments to blast it with a dozen corrosive missiles that do a lot of damage, but spread over some time.